Foxmarks to Xmarks

Do you like to have your Firefox bookmarks portable and go with you whichever terminal computer you might use? if it is a yes, you should definitely try out Foxmarks and it is newly known as Xmarks!

Xmarks is a Firefox plug-in and you can upload your Firefox bookmarks to your account on Xmarks' server, so you can synchronize your bookmarks regardless of location, OS systems or PC ownership. Certainly, to enjoy that, you need an account with Xmarks and it is free.
What's new and cool about Xmarks is that when you do google search, on the search result display page you will find additional butterfly buttons providing additional information to help you screen the result and find the relevant ones. It looks really clean and cool. No click is necessary unless you are sure to be redirected to the site. If someone has booked that URL before, that button will show up on the right side of the display result and everything is mouse-over, meaning you don't have to click and see what more information the additional buttons bring to you.

I've been holding an account with foxmarks for a couple of years. I find it very helpful and useful. I can access the same set of bookmarks on different computers on my univeristy campus and also in the two systems on my mbp. I think this is something will help you with your Internet Use Efficiency!

kaixin.com & Kaixin001.com which one is fake?

if you try searching kaixin using google or baidu, you will probably find both websites!
which one is the copy of the other? I don't know! but I did got to know kaixin001.com first. it was introduced to me by an ex-sina employee. I did not get onto it as there were many friends back then yet... after almost a year... i guess lots of my friends have gotten onto Kaixin001.com... I think it's the REAL one!
Nevertheless, i did receive invitation from Kaixin.com sent by some friends... it's very confusing now which one is the REAL one to the mass! lots of people might just get onto kaixin.com because they've heard of it... it's a domain name game in this case!

the domain name kaixin.com won't be cheap... compared to 10 years ago!
please do watch out which one is the Kaixin network you want to join!

Economy turmoil really hits Singapore

(source: BBC news)

I guess it's pretty sad to hear all the bad news about economy of the place where you live and study/work. I guess that's the hard fact- the economy is really bad!
However, don't give up! Economy downturn does not mean the end of the world. To certain extent, it started to make people think thoroughly who they are and what they can do. So do the companies started thinking, what they did right and what went wrong. It's a good time for reflection and correction and also start to focus on the ACTUAL development and growth of individuals and companies.

If you are hunting a job, ALL the best! If you are looking for talents, good luck!

Long-sightedness and Astigmatism

Hyperopia, also known as far-sightedness, long-sightedness or hypermetropia, is a defect of vision caused by an imperfection in the eye (often when the eyeball is too short or when the lens cannot become round enough), causing difficulty focusing on near objects, and in extreme cases causing a sufferer to be unable to focus on objects at any distance. As an object moves toward the eye, the eye must increase its power to keep the image in focus on the retina. If the power of the cornea and lens is insufficient, as in hyperopia, the image will appear blurred.

Hyperopia, and restoring of vision with convex lens.

People with hyperopia can experience blurred vision, asthenopia, accommodative dysfunction, binocular dysfunction, amblyopia, and strabismus.^[1]

Hyperopia is often confused with presbyopia,^[2][3] another condition that frequently causes blurry near vision.^[4] Presbyopes who report good far vision typically experience blurry near vision because of a reduced accommodative amplitude brought about by natural aging changes with the crystalline lens.^[4] It is also sometimes referred to as farsightedness, since in otherwise normally-sighted persons it makes it more difficult to focus on near objects than on far objects.^[5]

[source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_sightedness]

Astigmatism is an optical defect in which vision is blurred due to the inability of the optics of the eye to focus a point object into a sharp focused image on the retina. This may be due to an irregular or toric curvature of the cornea or lens. There are two types of astigmatism, regular and irregular. Irregular astigmatism is often caused by a corneal scar or scattering in the crystalline lens and cannot be corrected by standard spectacle lenses. Irregular astigmatism of the cornea can be corrected by contact lenses. Regular astigmatism arising from either the cornea or crystalline lens can be corrected by a toric lens. A toric surface resembles the surface of an American football or a doughnut where there are two regular radii, one smaller than another. This optical shape gives rise to regular astigmatism in the eye. ^[1] The first spectacle lenses that corrected astigmatism were made in Philadelphia in 1841.

The refractive error of the astigmatic eye stems from a difference in degree of curvature refraction of the two different meridians (i.e., the eye has different focal points in different planes.) For example, the image may be clearly focused on the retina in the horizontal (sagittal) plane, but not in front of the retina in the vertical (tangential) plane. Astigmatism causes difficulties in seeing fine detail, and in some cases vertical lines (e.g., walls) may appear to the patient to be tilted. The astigmatic optics of the human eye can often be corrected by spectacles, hard contact lenses or contact lenses that have a compensating optic, cylindrical lens (i.e. a lens that has different radii of curvature in different planes), contact lenses, or refractive surgery.

[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astigmatism_(eye) ]

these might be the reasons causing my poorer left eyesight, compared to my right eyesight. anyway, my right eyesight is perfect. 

just a side note, I guess I also belong to the Wikipedia generation!

Finally New Facebook Home

Totally like the new Facebook home!

It kinda reminds me of the twitter home. you know what? I love the twitter home, though it's pretty hard to find your own. =p However, Facebook finally introduced something that they wanted to introduce long ago. Remember they first announced that they were going to change the facebook look-and-feel? I guess there was overwhelming responses about how good or how bad that move was. Nevertheless, they did and it was pretty cool! much nicer and more intuitive than before, despite some of the small things that we find irritated about... checking your own wall. because you have to click on your profile to see what your friends have left no your wall. 

I guess it's easier now! It's back to the 3 column layout. I really like the right column where I can find out more what's the hottest event, pages, etc. that my friends are attending or following!

nice! well done, Facebook! you deserve a pat on your shoulder! I guess many pats, as it were the efforts of the team. Thank you!

thumb size, small talk

have you seen the latest iPod Shuffle?
It's so small... really in the size of a thumb, maybe even smaller!~
how cool! for 4Gb it costs $79 dollars... well... still more expensive and a typical thumb drive... but you can play music with it and it comes with some buttons and earphones AND it's from APPLE!
I'm not advertising here but just want to share with you that it is worth taking a look at how small talks really work. ^^ I've not gotten one and don't think I will get one with my two iPod videos (30 Gb). It looks very slick, doesn't it?

(image from Apple.com)

For more info, http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/

I was wondering where did the control buttons go... well... fewer buttons now... they have this new feature called VoiceOver. It talks to you. it will have to work with your iTunes to make sure it does not talk nonsense. If you are fascinated by how it looks, go and visit an Apple store to feel it! i know I'm going to feel it at an apple store!

Exploring Facebook Home Page

If you are a facebook user, you must how the news feed on your home page!

have you discovered there is an arrow at the end of all the tabs?

Have you clicked on it and find out what that is about?

Apparently, I did not even notice when it came out! I guess it was only a few weeks back, I discovered that i can view feeds by friend lists! that's so cool! I do group my friends based on interests, like entrepreneurs; or how we met, like we stayed in the same hostels before; or we have done something together... lots of group indeed. I guess i have over 20 lists. some of them are repeated lists for the ease of inviting them to events or groups... I remember the maximum number of friends you can invite to an event is limited to 100. to make my life easier, I just add 99 friends to a list and create another one to continue the list if there are more than 100 friends belong to that list!

it's cool to find out specific information on what you classmates are doing, what your hall friends are doing, what your buddies are doing, or what are you friends from a particular group are doing... very nice and very neat! 

I really enjoy this feature as it really demonstrated the development of the news feed feature, which has evolved, I believe, quite a bit. Thanks again for having such a good small feature!

What is ALL?

ALL?

it is a type of blood cancel and it 's full name is called Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. 

"ALL starts with a change to a single cell in the bone marrow. Scientists are studying the exact genetic changes that cause a normal cell to become an ALL cell.

Few factors have been associated with an increased risk of developing ALL. Exposure to high doses of radiation therapy used to treat other types of cancer is one known risk factor. Other possible risk factors are continually under study. ALL is not contagious (catching).

ALL occurs at different rates in different geographic locations. There are higher rates in more developed countries and in higher socioeconomic groups. Scientists continue to explore possible relationships with life-style or environmental factors but no firm conclusions have yet been reached. This suggests that many factors may be involved. At the present time there is no known way to prevent the disease."

source here.

Lately, I got to know that an acquaintance of mine was diagnosed with ALL. I think it just happened last week. The acquaintance was hospitalized and went through a series of diagnosis. The family members are getting the travel documents process to fly over here to take care of her. 

God, please protect her. 

Why do you blog?

hi there,

Do you have a blog? How often do you blog? and Why do you blog?

This questions seemed very very old and were asked long time ago seemingly. 

just like do you have a cell? how often do you use your cell and why do use your cell?

I guess nowadays you seldom hear people ask you the same questions for using cell phones. 

so what's the big deal about blogging, right? 

Where is blogging in the technology adoption curve? It has certainly passed the visionary and early adoption stage.... and I believe it has entered mainstream market... As you can discover, many many enterprises started having blog as part of their corporate blogs. well, you may wonder what blogs have to do with corporate. what's interesting is that some decades ago, technology innovation centered around enterprise because that's the only customers would pay for something useful for them. Ever since technology applications entered end-consumers, we are talking about individuals, as somewhat personal, things had changed. Technology innovation driving force started slowly moving from enterprise to consumers, as more and more consumers began to pay for services like that. So where are we today? Personally, I think the transition is still going on and we are in the stage of innovation driven by both enterprises and consumers (their needs and demands). that's why we can see clearly from the market segmentation (enterprise market and consumer market) and business models (B2C, C(2B)2C and B2B etc. ) that we seem to have two main driving forces now instead sole one in the past. More so the consumer sides started to gain more and more attention from the enterprises because their dear own employees are fortunately (or unfortunately) the users of those consumer services/products/applications. so called "what works at home is going back to the office. "

Blogging started with consumers, at least it was the mass made blogging such a big deal. Then, the corporates started to utilize (hopefully not abuse) blogging as the additional avenue to do marketing, PR, sales, customer services... just name it... all kinds of areas that different enterprises have used blogs for..

coming back to the question "where we are in the technology adoption curve." i guess for the consumer market it is still in the early mainstream (if we consider cell phones are in their mainstream or late mainstream). Therefore, there are definitely people in this world, even in the developed economies, have not heard of blog despite that they might have been in contact with blogs in various forms. just like, there are still people in the US have not seen or used a computer before. Certainly, there are a lot more people in other parts of the world, especially Asia, Africa and South America. 

think again "why do you blog?" before giving a vague answer... 

to be honest, just like if you ask me why I use a cell phone? the immediate answer on top of my head might be "I must have one... it's convenient.... blah... blah... blah..." in fact, i use cellphone much less nowadays compared to 3 years ago...

for me, to have this blog, it is really to jot down some thoughts of mine and to share those with other people... yes, it is the fundamental behavior - communication... but in the way of self-expression. 

I was at BlogOUT! 2009 yesterday and at the last part, such topic came up. one reason of blogging was to GET ATTENTION.  Not matter how you argue, it can always be pinned down to that point of seeking attention. Thus, the main reasons become more important!

Where Should You register your first startup company?

A friend of mine just started working on his idea in Beijing, which really made me think extra hard... where shall one register and start his/her very first startup company?
As lots of media has published, Singapore ranked #1 the easiest place in Asia to start a company. However, from my experience, it's darn simple for Singaporean citizens and Permanent Residents. I've not figured out how to register a sole foreign owned company in Singapore yet. Maybe, one has to have a local partner.

Another destination might be Hong Kong, as more and more Google Ads pop up on my Blog suggesting that Hong Kong has very good policies for starting companies... Yes, I guess it is. When i was attending some legal structures of a company in Beijing and else where, Hong Kong always poped out as one of the place to have a registered company to fulfil certain requirement to get listed publicly. Certainly, Hong Kong does not have a restriction of the nationality to register a company there.

where else? Silicon Valley? Stockholm?
Lots to discover! These are real matters to discover. It will help make a solid decision!~

OR
do you even need to register a company to start working on your ideas?

Facebook's New Home Page

I saw a short notice on the info bar at facebook home page... they are going to introduce to us the new home page very soon! 

For detailed site tour, you shall go there. 

I think I'll like it more as it went back to the tradition 3 columns instead of the current 2 columns. even though I'm on the current home page for all the while, somehow I still don't like it... I often could not find the right page that I wanted. home page is only to view others but not myself. I had to visit the profile page to check myself out. 

really looking forward to the new home page!

IBM is hiring...

I guess IBM does not need a HC freeze, apparently... IBM is still hiring... it's good to know that. I checked that website out and found the video is very good... a quick overview of some real problem in this world... 

The video is called "tale of a smarter planet". it sounded like a documentary video. Alright.. enjoy!

If you're looking at job opportunities... don't spend too time on Jobs portals... these jobs will not go there, I guess. 

are local ads better for bloggers?

I discovered that Nuffnang is regional/local ad network for the bloggers. I guess the advertisers are more life-style oriented with a local focus... for example, nike targeting at singapore.... or samsung targeting at the phillipines.
for blogs with a stronger presence and influence, i think nuffnang is perfect... I just installed the code and it has started working... it is pretty cool... the two ads I saw are something i'm interested. =) One is the BlogOUT! event taking place this friday and saturday in singapore and the other is a movie ad for "he's just not that into you"...

I guess for my personal interests. Google adsense still works better as it really changes with the location of the readers. I was in Shenzhen and Hong Kong last week. I tried to update my blog and I saw the ads were in traditional chinese and it was mostly for shenzhen and hong kong market... so that way, it is very localized. However, it is not very targeted enough compared to Nuffnang.

I'll continue to use both and find out how it works differently. As the founders said, they are not trying to compete with Google Adsense. for personal blogs, lifestyle blogs, life story blogs, i think nuffnang stands a very good chance to lead the market... for an average blogger who talks about anything about their life, his friends are his/her targeted audience, and in additional to the content, their friends can enjoy some more relevant information on products/services... would that not be nice?

Google Adsense is a huge ad network... it's very diverse and indicates some level of interests of the bloggers based on the content. however, it might not be as good for the readers despite that they are, too, interested in the content of the blog.

Nuffnang is tiny compared to Google but it's local and best for personal blogs. The ads are more targeted and the average CTR should be very high... nevertheless, the diversity of the advertisers might not be good. nevertheless, the ads can be very useful as well...